


who let you out among the crowd?

by chartreuser



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-13
Updated: 2015-11-13
Packaged: 2018-05-01 10:44:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5202908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chartreuser/pseuds/chartreuser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Oh?” Napoleon asks, leans forward in his seat as if he’s seen something worth stealing. “Are you finally willing to give up your chess for my company.”</p><p>Illya rolls his eyes. “I’m telling you to go walk around the city,” he says. “Not that I’d accompany you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	who let you out among the crowd?

**Author's Note:**

> this is answering [asmuchasidliketo](http://asmuchasidliketo.tumblr.com)'s prompt on tumblr: Hurt/comfort or gadgets rivalry, as you wish.
> 
> edit: [ingu ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ingu) beta'd the amazing into this fic skdjfjksdf thank you thank you thank you <333333

Thirteen days have passed since the bruises of their last mission were peppered on their bodies like a cruel reminder. Thirteen days and Napoleon has grown less curious, is less reluctant to let this summer heat wash over him; is lazier. Like a cat.

Gaby is back at headquarters negotiating the perimeters of the next mission with Waverly. The three of them have settled into some kind of odd dynamic, with Gaby telling them what to do and the both of them disregarding it. They’re still finding their footing, still feeling around the edges of their team as if children playing with a new toy.

“I didn’t think this city would be so boring,” Napoleon says, inscrutable in sunglasses. There’s an itch in him that he’s never been able to shake; he’s getting restless. Illya had thought that this break of theirs would at least give Napoleon some breathing space, some room to work his insatiable fingers in.

Illya glances up, and the sunglasses are off. The thin shirt Napoleon is wearing is clinging to his skin with all that perspiration, and Illya averts his gaze because he’s supposed to.

“You could do something about this boredom,” he says, and watches Napoleon’s eyes light up.

“Oh?” Napoleon asks, leans forward in his seat as if he’s seen something worth stealing. “Are you finally willing to give up your chess for my company?”

Illya rolls his eyes. “I’m telling you to go walk around the city,” he says. “Not that I’d accompany you.”

“Hmm.” Napoleon sulks, and shuffles over to him, seemingly casual.

 _I know all your tells,_ Illya doesn’t say. _You needn’t pretend._

That hand is reaching for Illya’s watch but he lets it happen. There’s a sliver of surprise in Napoleon’s face when he realizes that Illya’s doing nothing to stop him and a little bit of something else, like he’s pleased. _Cat,_ Illya thinks again.

“You’re it,”Napoleon says, and Illya smiles.

///

Chasing after Napoleon isn’t as difficult as he had thought; perhaps it’s because he’s making it easy, like the both them aren’t spies and don’t know better.

“Is this fun for you?” Illya shouts at him from across the railway track, chest warmed when he sees his watch around Napoleon’s wrist, knowing that it’s safe with him that way.

Napoleon has his back turned towards him, and he’s walking away. Illya knows of seven ways to catch up to him but he lets him leave, is content with this pretension the both of them are putting up with.

“We’ll see how your _superior_ Russian gadgets manage to track me down,” Napoleon calls out, and Illya is grinning because both of them aren’t using anything but the shoes on their feet.

He shoves his hands into his pockets and waits for this train to pass.

///

Both of them have their guns still in their jackets but they haven’t been touched in two weeks, not even cleaned.

“Too much noise,” said Illya, on the night the mission had ended. “Not good for covert operations.”

“Of course you’d think that. Why’d you have one, then?” asked Napoleon. He had his hands on one of the tracking devices the KBG had issued Illya, a long time ago.

“You know why,” said Illya, rolling his eyes. “Why do you have your gloves on if you’re not even doing any stealing?”

Napoleon cocked his head at him, concentration completely taken off from the new toy he’d found. It still felt jarring to catch his eye, to carry the weight of his focus.

“Old habits, I suppose,” he answers finally.

“Then why bother–” says Illya, because he’s unsure if there’s anything else to say. Napoleon’s face is stark, lit brightly by the desk light. Illya thought about all the times he had tried to glean information from his expressions, from the lines around his eyes.

“You could ask that question a hundred times, and there wouldn’t be an answer.”

“What question,” said Illya. He walked to stand in front of Napoleon, letting his body tug the shadows back onto his features. “Was I asking one?”

“Yes,” said Napoleon. “Why do we do anything indeed.”

“You can’t pretend like everything is out of your hands, Cowboy,” said Illya. “This distance that you think exists between you and everything happening isn’t actually there. You can’t always do this, stealing information and refusing to understand it, handing it to our superiors and pretending like they’re going to cut your leash.”

“Then what do you suggest I do?” Napoleon said, standing abruptly to look him in the eye. Illya thought that this was (maybe) the third time that he’d seen anything other than slow satisfaction pouring out of his eyes, his mouth. Illya thought that he liked him, like this.

“Anything you want,” said Illya, “not just what they tell you to.”

For a moment he’d thought that Napoleon was going to retreat. He looked, Illya thought rather unreservedly, like a deer in the headlights, like Illya was going to run him over, like he was going to turn him inside out. He’d thought: _I’m not interested in the secrets you keep buried in your lungs, in your throat. I only want to know what you’d do with them._

The silence between them was diminished, somewhat, by the police sirens that were ringing downstairs just outside their hotel lobby.

“I do anything but that, according to you,” said Napoleon, with a somewhat hesitant smile.

“I can be wrong sometimes,” Illya said, and left to pack their belongings.

///

Napoleon looks like someone else like this, strolling through the city with the first few buttons of his shirt undone. It’s not completely transformative—Napoleon’s fingers are restless, twitching every single time someone expensive walks by.

But he’s relaxed. The slope of his shoulders isn’t so rigid anymore, and the morning light warms up his profile, from what Illya can see from this distance. He’s whistling a tune they’d heard two children singing as they’d rushed past, head tilted downwards.

He lacks his usual confidence, but Illya decides that it isn’t such a bad look on him. His limbs are loose and everything on his body belongs to him, save for Illya’s watch (which looks like it belongs to him anyway).

Illya slips his sunglasses back on, lets the colours of Napoleon’s ensemble dull, and continues walking.

///

“I wanted that CO2 laser,” Napoleon says when they walk down the alley with no one else in sight. “It was pretty neat, admittedly.”

Illya grins, and glances towards the back of Napoleon’s head, the curls of his hair slicking up from the absence of gel. “Your scissors were pretty neat, too.”

He’s running the soles of his shoes over the stones underneath, aware that Napoleon has stopped. Illya keeps a few metres between them, is content to watch him run his fingers over the rough wallpaper of the closed shops from where he stands.

“I’m trying to give a compliment,” Napoleon huffs. “Just take it.”

Illya doesn’t hold back the laughter that comes. “I know,” he shrugs, and doesn’t pull down the grin that comes after, even when Napoleon turns to face him. “It’s just fun to rile you up.”

Napoleon’s blinking at him, surprised, until he rolls his eyes and leans back against a wall. “You sure understand how to get along with a guy.”

Illya scrunches up his nose, searches his mind for the phrase he’d heard Napoleon say once, in the backyard of some baron’s mansion.

“Don’t I know it,” he parrots back at him, and watches a smile light up Napoleon’s face, bright.

///

“You’re getting old,” Napoleon teases him when they’re both seated in a café somewhere, down a street they don’t know the name of. “Never knew you could walk so slow.”

Illya steals the rest of Napoleon’s coffee but doesn’t gulp it down. He takes sips of it, slow, unhurried. “Two years younger than you,” he says, and looks up just in time to catch the edges of Napoleon’s grin unfurling.

“Never claimed that I wasn’t looking into retirement homes.”

Illya looks away. “You’ll be the worst they’d have to deal with.”

Napoleon shrugs. “I can still visit you. Bring you the cookies you absolutely detest.”

“So I’ll be living next door.”

The rest of Illya’s brunch goes missing before he can register it. The sunlight’s gleaming through the window and reflecting off the surface of his father’s watch.

“Sure,” Napoleon waves his fork at him, mouth half-full, despite the fact that the both of them would never make it to even half a hundred, let alone seventy. “Just leave the old ladies alone to me.”

Illya snorts. “Don’t be too confident. You haven’t had anyone in months.”

Napoleon’s staring back at him, unflinching. “Yeah,” he says, eyes searching, as if stealing just one watch still wasn’t enough. “I haven’t.”

///

 

**Author's Note:**

> the reason why this ended so abruptly is because i turned my mind over and had no idea how to continue this (i'm very willing to do so, this obviously isn't finished) so i decided to ask some help in that regard. if any of you would like to see something happen please tell me! i gotta finish this I GOTTA. /CRY
> 
> edit: also i think i know what to write for the next chapter but tell me all your ideas anyway ! ! ! !!!!
> 
> [tmfu tumblr](http://finnedpoe.tumblr.com) / [poetry tumblr](http://ahthur.tumblr.com)


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